As a puppy Butters was a terror. A true nightmare for any new dog owner. She disobeyed our commands, mocked me in obedience classes, bit us and when we would try to correct her she would come back and bite us harder the next time.
Out of all of those things and many others Butters would eat anything that was within 5 feet of her; left, right, up or down she considered it hers. It didn't matter if it was on the counter-she would jump up so her front paws were on the countertop and wolf it down. It didn't matter if it was in your hand or on your plate if you turned your head away from her it was gone in less than 3 seconds.
I have a few stories from her puppyhood days that I like to retell occasionally such as the Pizza Hut tale where she ate our entire breadstick order. And then when I was scolding her for it she burped it back in my face. There's also the time she ate 6-7 doughnuts off the counter that were still in the box; when I returned the box appeared as if it as untouched but the chocolate frosting that she had not had time to lick off the counter was still present. She almost got away with that one!
Butters is now 3 years old and while in some dogs that should be considered adulthood, of course in labs we aren't even out of the puppy stage yet!
Most recently while at my parents house for Thanksgiving weekend I was packing all of our things getting ready to head back home and decided to put away the kennel that Butters sleeps in during our stay. My mother is much kinder than we are to our dog and put an old robe down on the floor of the kennel for Butters to sleep on. (We have learned our lesson as Butters still rips any towel, blanket or doggie bed we buy her to sleep on and so she now gets the hard, cold metal floor of her kennel at home) She surprisingly had not ripped up the old robe but while I was pulling it out of the kennel something fell out onto the floor. At first I didn't know what it was but upon further investigation I discovered it was the netting from the ham we had eaten for our Thanksgiving dinner!
I took it out to show Evan to ask her if he saw her eating it the day before to which he said: "Well, I thought I saw something hanging out of her mouth but when I went to reach for her and pry open her jaws there was nothing there." Well now we know what it was! First off, how she did not choke on it going down but secondly how did she not choke on it while it was coming back up in the middle of the night! This dog amazes me at times!
Yesterday we had some friends come over to visit who have a sweet girl, JoAnna, who is 18 months. Now, JoAnna has a doggie at her house too but Butters is much bigger than Max and let's just say Butters was all up in JoAnna's business! Especially when Butters realized that this baby is the same size height wise as she which means all of Joanna's food soon became Butters food! When the banana peel went missing, it was confirmed that Butters ate it. Well, swallowed it whole is more like it.
Thankfully, the banana peel so far has been easily digested and we have not had to clean up any messes. We love our dog but goodness gracious when is she going to grow up!
